Some lessons and perspectives for applications of stochastic models in biological and cancer research

Abstract

Randomness is an unavoidable feature of inner cellular environment and its effects propagate to higher levels of living matter organization such as cells, tissues, and organisms. Approaching those systems experimentally to understand their dynamics is a complex task because of the plethora of compounds interacting in a web that combines intra and inter level elements such that a coordinate behavior come up. Such a characteristic points to the necessity of establishing principles that help on the description, categorization, classification, and the prediction of the behavior of biological systems. The theoretical machinery already available, or the ones to be discovered motivated by biological problems, can play an important role on that quest. Here we exemplify the applicability of theoretical tools by discussing some biological problems that we have approached mathematically: fluctuations in gene expression and cell proliferation in the context of loss of contact inhibition. We discuss the methods that we have employed aiming to provide the reader with a phenomenological, biologically motivated, perspective of the use of theoretical methods. Furthermore, we discuss some of our conclusions after employing our approach and some research perspectives that they motivate.